I mean no harm or offense to anyone on this planet earth, which must be preserved for all of us to dwell in peacefully.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Office politics: Is it creeping into your business?

Office
politics exists in every work environment. When a group of people works together for
40-50 hours a week there is bound to be some friction and difference of
opinions. There is no harm in it. In fact, if channeled properly, this could
prove to be useful, breeding healthy competition. But unfortunately, in many a workplace, office
politics advances to its ugliest form, slowly and stealthily, tormenting
employee morale, threatening workforce stability and eating away productivity
bit by bit. It is why you need to step
in early before office politics spins out of control.So who are those office politicians? They
can be from any level of management: a junior staff playing the blame game over
a task gone wrong, a manager making another look bad and incompetent in front
of the top management, or an insecure assistant offering fulsome flattery to
the immediate boss in an attempt to hide his incompetence. In addition, there
are backstabbers, lobbyists, credit thieves, gossipers, double agents, and so
on.

On the other hand, you also have the victims. The number of office politicians may not be
large, but the effects could be widespread. In fact, even a single manager in your
organization who is terribly hungry to expand his power and position is capable
of doing a lot of harm. His presence can
make everyone feel insecure, and his favorite prey – whom he competes with, who
don't feed his ego, or whose faces he doesn't like – are likely to be the worst
sufferers, even if they are doing their job and doing it well.

Most of the times, workplace politics comes in disguise, making it tough for
small business owners, particularly those who are not employee-turned
entrepreneurs, to detect the political undercurrents that exist in the
workplace.

You may believe that an embattled employee is innocently seeking your advice,
but probably he is persuading you to take his side; a trickster may try to
bamboozle you with show-off enthusiasm, intelligent-sounding technical jargon,
or seemingly great ideas; an apple of your eye might have a hidden agenda to
grow his career at the cost of others' professional image; someone may hire
more only to feed his ego, or try to expand his authority in the name of
cross-functional team activities; probably a few victims, back-stabbed and
demoralized, have already bid adieu to your company – you're just unaware of
the damage done.

As the owner, it is your job to prevent office politics from creeping into your
small business. Here are a few
suggestions for you.

First, give a positive direction to the factors that are responsible for the
political undercurrents. Try to convert
every conflict of opinions into a healthy debate, align personal ambitions of
every employee with collective targets of your company, and guide everyone to
value healthy conflict and cooperation. Easier
said than done, but try this. Second, take preventive measures – keep your
policies transparent, and ensure that a system is in place to clearly define
authority and accountability of every employee. Third, be alert. You need not worry about every water-cooler
talk, but as soon as you sense that some people are out there playing a dirty
game, act strongly against them regardless of their performance level or
seniority.